The Irascible Professor
SMIrreverent Commentary
on the State of Education in America Today

by Dr. Mark H. Shapiro

"I
dote on his very absence."... ...William Shakespeare.

Commentary
of the Day - August 3, 2004: Absence Makes the Teen Grow Smarter?
Guest commentary by Marilyn D. Davis.

As my son's senior
year of high school draws to a close -- or as he draws it to a close weeks
before the final curtain -- the two of us are experiencing mixed emotions.
He is both excited about and dreading the end of his glory days as newspaper
editor and noted columnist; I am sad that my firstborn child will be leaving
home in only three months, but also thrilled to see the end of an era in
my life: the age of Mom calling Dan out of school.

Over the past
four years, I have developed a close, personal relationship with the voicemail
belonging to unnamed attendance office employee who always asks me the
following: "Please state the name of the student, the student's ID,
the date and time of the absence, and the reason for the absence.
Speak slowly and clearly and try not to laugh too hard because believe
me, we're often laughing when we retrieve these messages."

For the first
few years of high school, I was honest. "Dan won't be in school because
he has

a fever
and the flu.an emergency
orthodontist appointment.a sensitive intestinal
condition that renders him glued to the toilet, figuratively speaking."

As he progressed
to being an upper classman, it dawned on him that strategically missing
a few classes would not cause his GPA to drop. Often, he would stay
up extra late to study for an exam, only to wake up extra early to study
again. At those times, he might ask me to call him out of his first
few classes so he could better prepare for an afternoon test. What's
a mother to do? Since he has always been a responsible student and
one who earns top grades, I didn't see the harm. However, by senior
year, his requests to be "called out" -- sometimes for more than just a
few hours -- were coming at me faster than I could invent reasonable excuses.

"Dan won't be
in school because he has

an urgent
meeting with his investment broker.a hair follicle
irregularity with secondary symptoms of lethargy.a pathological
desire for academic success to the exclusion of all other earthly delights,
including eating, sleeping, bathing, watching a Britney Spears video, and,
for the moment, attending school."

Each time I left
one of these messages, I half expected to receive a call from his dean,
informing me that my son was dangerously close to being charged with contributing
to the delinquency of a mother. Or that I was just as close to a
charge of disorderly conduct: aiding and abetting an honor student.

I wanted to believe
that my actions were done in support of my son's achievements -- that any
well-meaning parent would misrepresent (okay, lie about) the facts of an
absence for the sake of the kid putting in extra study time. However,
I had a growing suspicion that I was doing him a disservice or, at the
least, setting a poor example by my collusion in this extended ruse.

Was I losing my
grip on the concept of academic integrity? To ease my guilty conscience,
I tried to think of alternatives to this behavior pattern. I wondered
if the system itself needed to change. Maybe high schools should
develop a set of attendance standards that are more flexible for the high
achievers in the class. But, I argued back at myself, in cases where
state reimbursement is tied to average daily attendance figures, changing
the standards could ultimately penalize the district as a whole.
Besides, such a system might be seen as discriminatory. I was stuck.

In a final effort
to resolve my dilemma, I sought help from my virtual best friend: the Internet.
I Googled my way to the home page of the National Center for Educational
Statistics. There I found a data table from a study by the University
of Michigan, Institute for Social Research, regarding students' absenteeism.
The study looked at attendance patterns among 8th, 10th and 12th grade
students in 1983, 1991 and 2000.

The bottom line,
which will come as no surprise, is this: a greater percentage of
12th graders cut one or more classes than do their younger counterparts.
The study also found that the rate of absence due to illness was relatively
constant among all grades over the three years. Between 56 and 60%
of students missed no days during the four-week period. (None of
them were named Dan.) As with class cutting, the number of days students
skipped school increased as students aged.

But most interesting
to me was the data on absence for reasons other than illness, cutting class,
or skipping school. Once again, seniors topped the charts for all
three years. Nearly a fourth of seniors missed two or more days of
school during the four-week period for these "other reasons." Roughly
another 20% missed a single day. If my chart-reading skills are any
good, we could be looking at the start of a trend: a whopping 4% or more
12th graders reported absences of one day or more for "other reasons" in
2000, compared to 1991. The two other grade levels showed a smaller
increase.

Although the other
reasons are not specified, I figure Moms calling kids out for being sick
when they are really at home studying had to account for at least .01%
of these instances. So I wasn't really manipulating the attendance
system -- I was merely a contributing factor in a growing national trend.

I immediately
felt better. And I stayed that way until Dan showed me the "senior
issue" of the school newspaper. On the survey where kids voted for
"cutest couple" or "most likely to succeed," Dan came in as first runner-up
for "most likely to get called out of their own funeral." Ouch.

The
Irascible Professor comments: The IP wonders if senior ditch day is included
in "other" absences. But seriously, as long as K-12 funding continues
to be linked to average daily attendance, parents need to exercise some
responsibility with respect to unnecessary absences.